What is your background?

I started out of school working in a law office as a paralegal and was introduced to trademark and copyright law, and other related publishing law. I had been an artist in school and had planned pursuing a higher degree in art. After working in IP law, I decided I loved it and have stuck with it. What I've enjoyed the most about trademark law is the contact with people all over the world, as our portfolio is pretty extensive. It's been an education.

I have been working at The First Church of Christ, Scientist on and off since 1990. We have a small office with four attorneys. There is one copyright paralegal, one trademark paralegal, and a support staff whom I manage.

What brands are you responsible for?

There are three organizations that I service, in different industries. Each has a different mission. One is publishing and the news industry, one is library and museum services, and the other is non-profit/religious activity.

In total we have more than 600 trademark registrations, reaching about 150 countries. We have three core brands-The Christian Science Monitor, the Cross and Crown design and a family of trademarks incorporating Christian Science, such as Christian Science Quarterly. Another major brand is The Mary Baker Eddy Library. As many of our magazine titles are translated in up to 14 languages, we have almost 100 distinct trademarks that we protect.

It seems unusual to have a trademark in a religious organization?

Religious sects don't come along that often. We were founded towards the end of the nineteenth century, when awareness of trademark rights was growing. Although most people might not think it, our trademarks are very important to us. It is particularly important to the church organization that it preserves the integrity of the founder's writings and that its services and publications are not confused with other sources. Trademarks help the church do that.

How do you enforce the marks?

We definitely have infringements. You get well-meaning members who want to take ownership of the symbols or brand and share them. We've realized our approach to this has to be different than the one we'd take with an intentional infringer. We'll send what we call "friendly" cease-and-desist letters. It helps us to educate our members about trademarks, so occasionally we'll communicate to them through articles and notices in our publications.

We are a bit like sports teams, in that our members are loyal and passionate and want to identify with the brand. I think trademark law has softened in some respects. A few decades ago it may have been damaging to allow ancillary uses of our trademarks. But now it doesn't necessarily dilute trademarks to allow such licensing. We're still considering whether or not to allow licensing in a given instance. Some people don't understand that while many Christian sects use a variation of the cross and crown, which is a common Christian symbol, our particular stylized design of the cross and crown is our trademark and has to function as such. It is so easy for people to misapply the mark and use it as an illustration of the religion in general instead of a source indicator. It's hard to fault their enthusiasm, but we have to protect against this kind of mistaken use.

In the past year or two we have launched a formal licensing program for our Cross and Crown trademark, which has been a significant endeavor. In the past, we had some informal licensing to our branch churches. Now we have expanded the use of the mark and formalized the licensing program. It's gone well. We've had to make a number of ad hoc decisions which is time-consuming, but through the process we're learning where to draw some bright lines as to what uses we will and will not license.

We have had requests for licenses for some odd things, which we have refused pretty quickly. The most unusual was probably tattoos. We have also had requests to use the mark on things like cookies and t-shirts. The licensing program costs more to administer than we receive in licensing fees, so the time spent making these decisions can be a draw on our resources.

What kinds of copyright issues do you deal with?

As publishers we deal with a lot of content, including acquiring rights and giving permission. We publish all types of works in all kinds of media and each area has its own issues. For example, music and video are very rich in layers of copyright ownership, and I spend a lot of time on that. In the newspaper area, we have a licensing and syndication side, which involves a lot of contracts. The Library also raises interesting issues, such as dealing with orphan works and the library exemptions under copyright law.

The Internet has had the largest impact on our work: it makes it so easy for people to publish, and also to infringe our copyrights and trademarks.

What are the big challenges on the Internet?

We think domain names will have a huge impact in the next year or two, with the changes coming. It is easy for people to register them quickly and at low expense. The Internet has also brought new forms of infringement, like domain parking and typosquatting. It can be difficult to enforce our trademark rights efficiently as there is a large increase in activity, but we are looking ahead to stay on top of it. Sending cease-and-desist letters, including to ISPs, and web monitoring by staff are the basics. But we are looking to add more comprehensive watching services for the web.

We already have a substantial number of domain name registrations. One of our projects last year was to eliminate registrations that were not of value. Sometimes you have to ask: what's driving our portfolio? If it is just about fear of someone else registering that same domain, then we can't afford to take that approach, to register as many names as possible just to preserve them. So we wanted to be more strategic by asking: what domain names do we really care about? Are they difficult or impossible to defend using a trademark registration? And what parts of the world are really important for particular marks? We also thought about the real estate-do we need to cover most or just a few of the TLDs?

As for the new gTLDs, we haven't really addressed that yet but we are watching it. There is a hefty price tag and potentially a large commitment to actively administering one, and that gives us pause as to whether we want to make that investment.

How has the Internet affected publishing?

The other thing about the Internet is that as publishers it's the way we are moving. The Monitor was the first big U.S. paper to go web-first and we've found things look good so far. The Internet disrupted the traditional newspaper model and requires papers to innovate in order to survive. Audiences are becoming very fragmented and we have to develop products that address what readers want.

That has an impact on our trademark portfolio too. Many of our marks are more than 100 years old and the registrations were directed at older media, so we've been working hard to update our registrations. Classifying websites has been a bit of a confusing area. What worked 10 years ago was simple, but with expansion in the types and numbers of our sites and in the service classes, we have to ask what category does the website fall into? Does the website simply promote a product or service or is the website an interactive information service itself? A website can be a marketing medium, the publication itself, or simply a distribution vehicle, or a combination of these. Then another issue is that the Monitor offers a daily email news briefing, which could be a completely different class. Publishing and distributing through the web can put your trademarks in multiple classes.

Then there are the questions: do we need to register the trademarks around the world? Do we have sufficient proof of use? Who is the website targeting, based on the language or the currency? How much traffic is there in each country? It's not always clearcut.

For decades, the Monitor has held regular events in Washington, D.C. for print reporters and senior government officials called the Monitor Breakfast. We are now launching a video series of them, turning them into a new product. That is a good example of how we're having to innovate.

What do you most like about your role?

I love the problem solving and the breadth of my work. I have my finger in so many different areas. What's nice is I can see what's going on across three organizations. Of course, as an attorney, I point out to specific departments when something might cause us liability or problems. But I can help solve problems between the organizations, too. These issues are harder to see sometimes, and I enjoy contributing that way.

The First Church of Christ, Scientist

The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. The First Church of Christ, Scientist (or Mother Church) is in Boston and there are some 1,700 branch churches and societies worldwide. Services are conducted by two lay readers and there is an emphasis on Bible lessons and healing. In 1908, Eddy founded the Christian Science Monitor as a global news organization. It is inspired by the Church's values, but is not a religious publication. The Monitor is now published daily online, with daily emails and a weekly print edition.